Low Tide (8 page)

“You know what, Delores?” Maggie said. “I think I’ll have a vodka and cranberry.”

“Sure thing, hon,” and Delores was gone.

“Change your mind?” Boudreaux asked.

Maggie held up the wrist on which she wore her Timex.

“I just went off the clock,” she lied again.

Boudreaux nodded and placed a napkin on his lap.

For a minute or two, they busied themselves with squeezing lemons and unwrapping packets of saltines.

“Did you and my nephew know each other?” Boudreaux asked, focused on choosing his hot sauce from several bottles on the table. The question sounded like polite conversation, but too much like polite conversation to actually be the thing.

“Not at all,” Maggie said to her lap as she spread out her napkin.

Boudreaux tapped exactly one drop of Tabasco onto an oyster, then slurped the oyster out of its shell, his eyes on Maggie all the while. She felt them as she took her first oyster with just the lemon. Then she looked up at him and they watched each other chew.

“Do you agree with the medical examiner that Gregory committed suicide?”

Maggie swallowed before answering.

“I don’t really have anything to tell me otherwise,” she said. “Do you?”

“Not really,” he answered.

“I talked to his psychiatrist over in Tallahassee,” Maggie said. “I did find it surprising that Gregory gave him permission to discuss his treatment with you.”

“It was a condition of me paying for it for years,” Boudreaux said.

“Well, I appreciate you sending him the release.”

Boudreaux nodded. “Was he of any help?”

Maggie put down her seafood fork before answering.

“I suppose he was. He said that your nephew had seen him irregularly for about seven years. That he was treating him for depression but had also diagnosed him with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”

Boudreaux picked up his beer and took a leisurely swallow, watching Maggie over the bottle. She watched back.

“What does that tell you?” he asked as he put down his beer.

“That he was a narcissist.”

Boudreaux regarded her with something that might be irritation but could just as easily be respect. He was about to say something when Delores arrived with Maggie’s drink. They both sat back as though to make room.

“Here you go, hon,” Delores said.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, Delores,” Boudreaux said politely.

“Y’all sure you don’t want to come inside? This storm looks like it’s about to break hard.”

Boudreaux looked up at Delores.

“It certainly is,” he said. “And when it does, it’s really gonna be something.”

Maggie looked at Boudreaux. “I’m fine where I am.”

He smiled and spread his hands. “Then so am I,” he said.

“Alright,” Delores said, shaking her head. “I’ll be back out to check on ya.”

Maggie took a healthy swallow of her drink without looking like she needed it, and Boudreaux busied himself popping an oyster onto a saltine. The wind was blowing his quite attractive hair hither and yon, and he ran a hand back through it as he chewed. Behind him on the river, lightning painted blue and white stripes on the water.

Maggie had just slurped another oyster when Boudreaux finally spoke again.

“How’s your father doing these days?”

Maggie was surprised by the question and happy for the excuse of chewing her food.

“He’s doing well,” she said after swallowing.

“I always liked Gray. I was sorry when we had to stop doing business.”

“He still goes out to his favorite beds a few days a week,” she said. “But he takes them over to the farmer’s market in Panama City. He doesn’t take enough to wholesale them.”

Boudreaux nodded as though in agreement with her father’s business sense.

“No oysterman ever really stops,” he said. “I still go out, but I fish. It doesn’t seem right to take the oysters from someone else.”

Maggie watched him fix another oyster on a cracker and put it neatly into his mouth. He noticed her watching as he sat back.

“What?” he asked.

“I was just wondering. You gladly take a public ‘thank you’ for donating $10,000 to the museum, but you didn’t want anyone to know you sent a truckload of melons to Battery Park.”

Boudreaux nodded once, then folded his arms on the table.

“When I do something nice publicly, it’s because it’s the right thing to do for my reputation. When I do it privately, it’s because it’s the right thing to do.”

Maggie felt something very like respect begin to form for the man and she wondered when she’d lost her mind. Aside from the fact that she knew he was guilty of any number of criminal activities, she also knew that there was some kind of spider and fly thing going on at their table, and that she was not the spider.

And yet, the manners and the startling blue eyes and the weird brand of honesty. She had to admit that he was compelling.

“What kind of reputation are you going for?” she asked him, mainly for something to say.

He smiled at her.

“I guess that depends on which business I’m promoting at the time. What kind of reputation are you going for?”

“Integrity, I suppose,” she said.

“I admire integrity,” he said. “Even when it’s inconvenient.”

“Am I inconveniencing you in some way?”

“Not thus far.”

One side of her mouth turned up in a half-grin and she allowed it. She got one in return.

“Well, you’re probably not doing much for my reputation,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

Maggie glanced over at the nearest window.

“I can only imagine what people think about you and me sitting out here alone,” she said.

He put his beer down and leaned onto the table.

“Let me tell you something I’ve learned,” he said. “When you start caring too much about what people think, you give them fractional ownership of your life. I don’t believe in fractional ownership.”

Just then, the sky opened up and rain exploded onto the deck like musket balls. Their table was under the canopy, but a sheet of cool moisture, fine as organza, brushed up against Maggie’s face. She couldn’t help but close her eyes in pleasure for just a second. When she opened them, Boudreaux was smiling at her and he looked downright kind.

“So what do you believe in?” she asked him.

“Hard work. God. Family. You?”

Maggie nodded. “The same.”

“Nothing is ever black or white, is it?” he asked her. “And nobody’s ever all bad or all good.”

Maggie swallowed as they looked at each other across the table. He broke the tension with another wink.

“Not often, no.” Maggie looked at her watch. “Speaking of family, I need to get going.”

Boudreaux stood as she scooted her chair back and got up from the table.

“I’ll pay for my check on the way out,” she said.

“Don’t embarrass me,” he said. “I asked you to come.”

“Okay. Well, thank you, then,” she said.

“Thank you.” He watched her pick up her purse. “Oh, Gregory’s Mass is Wednesday, if you’d like to come.”

Maggie stopped short, her purse halfway up her arm.

“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I’m working.”

“It’s alright. I mainly asked to be polite,” he said. “I didn’t actually expect to see you.”

His eyes had gotten that shrewd, speculative look again, like he was trying to see the other side of her skin.

“Goodbye, Mr. Boudreaux.”

“Goodbye, Maggie.”

Maggie hurried through the restaurant and waved at Delores as she opened the door. When she looked over her shoulder, Boudreaux was still standing at the table, and still watching her.

She ran to the Jeep, the rain plastering her hair to her head and her clothes to her body within seconds. She yanked open the door and jumped in, closed it quickly behind her.

The rain pounded on the roof at a deafening volume, yet she could hear water dripping from her hair onto the seat. She felt almost as though she’d just gotten back from some alternate universe, and was glad for the tangible reminders that she was still on her own planet.

There was something about Boudreaux that drew her, she had to admit that. But she also had to admit that he’d never said more than five words to her before Saturday, and almost all of those had been “Hello.”

A part of her wondered if he knew about Gregory. Another part of her thought that maybe he’d just told her that he did. She couldn’t help worrying about why.

She thought back to that day in Boudreaux’s backyard and his surprise that Gregory had had the guts to use a gun.

He’d looked at her when he’d said it.

M
aggie was waiting at the town’s one traffic light when her personal cell phone rang from the passenger seat. She picked it up, saw the call was coming from Wyatt’s personal phone, and answered.

“Hey.”

“What the hell are you doing sucking down aphrodisiacs with a certain person?” he asked, sounding only mildly aggravated.

“How do you know this already?”

“Because I’m a senior law enforcement officer with almost thirty years on the job,” he said. “And because I ran into two different people who were there before I even got to the dentist.”

Maggie heard him put his hand over the phone and say, “Excuse me, I’ll be in there in just a second.”

“How’s Heather?”

She heard a door shut.

“She’d like me to get off my phone so she can peer at my gums,” he said.

Maggie was pretty sure from the echo that Wyatt had ducked into a bathroom. Or a closet.

“So shut up,” she said, smiling.

“What’s up with you and Boudreaux?”

“That’s where he wanted me to meet him. And I was hungry.”

Her light turned green and she turned right onto 98, headed for her parents’ house.

“When peace officers are feeling peckish, they’re supposed to eat with other good guys, not do a scene from
Goodfellas
at the local raw bar. People are going to start thinking he’s grooming you to be his next pet cop.”

It was fairly widely believed that her predecessor, Gordon Bellows, had been on Boudreaux’s payroll for many years. He was now retired to a nice condo in Key Largo.

“Well, no good guys invited me,” she said. “Besides, I needed to drop the stuff off to him. Are you actually mad?”

“No, although I am somewhat put out,” Wyatt said. “But I called primarily to deliver a message.”

“From who?”

“Some girl named Grace,” he said. “She said it was urgent that you call her before six.”

It took Maggie a second to place the name.

“Did you talk to her?”

“No, but I told Carla I’d pass it on.”

“Okay. Can you text me the number?”

“I don’t text. I write or speak.”

“Well, could you speak me the number then? I’m driving.”

“Hold on. Alright, it’s 340-2291. You got it?”

“2291. Got it.”

“Okay, well then I’m going to go flex my gums.”

“Okeydokey,” Maggie said and hung up.

She pulled over to the curb and dialed the number. It was answered halfway through the second ring.

“Hello?”

Grace’s voice was small and delicate, and Maggie could barely hear her over the rain thumping her roof.

“Grace? This is Lt. Redmond returning your call.”

She heard a sigh at the other end of the line.

“Hey. I was wondering if you could meet me so I could talk to you.”

“Do you need help?”

There was a long silence.

“Grace? Do you need help?”

“Well, I was thinking maybe I could help you and that would help me.”

“Okay. When do you want to meet?”